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Tuesday, 5 November 2013

Low-Key Festivities

The way the wind blows is roguish today. It ties knots
in loose hair, chucks tree debris, tugs at moorings. One pheasant attempting
flight is held at a hover till it gives up. Clouds are pushed till they fall
into one fuzzed grey spread.

Indoors, a busy oven: the last of the pumpkin seeds roast, a pan of butter
boils to ghee. The floors are swept and we are indecisive about the washing.

Drive home from work under a dark sky, not one
firework appears.

There are evenings when we have stood, bundled in outdoor padding, sighing at
flagrant fires in the sky: tiny against mountainous flames: writing shapes with
fizzing white heat: thrilled by the tar barrels: ears crackling with luminous
shrieks.

Indoors, behind the Rayburn door, coals and hand-hewn logs form an orange opal
underworld. The flames are lazy, magnificent, mauve-tinted.

2 comments:

Tar in the barrel- dangerous and stunning! Google 'Tar barrels Ottery St Mary' to find out more: we all got a bit singed but no burns! I don't think we are pheasants. They are clumsy movers, very reactionary :-)